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Published: December 1st 2005
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David.
Right, first up apologies for taking so long to update the blog. We have been running around like blue bottomed flies for the last couple of weeks. We are actually in Guangzhou now taking a well deserved break and letting our visas run down. Also apologies for not posting any photos. I will do it when we stay in a hostel with a chinese and english speaker nearby, as I can't work out how to get them on using a chinese language photo wizard.
After Pingyao we headed to Xi'an, mainly to see the terracotta warriors, the eighth wonder of the world according to the chinese tour guide (wait a minute, they said that about the great wall last week??).
We stayed in the bell tower hostel, which is OK, centrally located and there were a few westerners to chat to which is always nice. And thay met us and paid our taxi from the station, which at 6.30 am stepping off a sleeper is a nice touch.
The first thing we did was sign up for a day trip to the terracotta warriors and a museum that day. On the way out to the teraccotta warriors
museum we took a detour to a factory where they make replica warriors. This happens a lot on guided tours in china, you get dropped off places you don't want to go so that somebody can sell you something you don't want.
On the way to the museum you go past the burial mound of emporer Qin, who had the army built. It looks like a big hill covered in trees today, but apparently it is the biggest burial mound in the world. I notice that our guide often tells us that something is the oldest, biggest or best in china though so i will reserve judgement till i see the pyramids!
When we arrived we went to the museum and watched a docufilm about emporer Qin. The film was from the 80's by the look of it and was in the style of monkey magic, without the english dubbing, if any of you remember monkey. Apparently Qin was the first emporer to unify china, was into book burning and slave labour, and had the warriors built to protect him in the afterlife. Unfortunately they didn't do the job. His dynasty lasted just two years (or was it
Buddha
A Buddha from the forest of Steles museum 20, can't remember) after his death and his terracotta warriors got smashed to bits and all their weapons stolen. A bit like the italian armed forces then. They were then found 2000 years later in the 70's by a peasant digging a well. The exact same peasant was sat outside in the shop looking bored and signing autographs for some exhorbitant fee. You weren't allowed to take photos though, presumably because then you could compare it with other peoples and realise it was a different bloke every day.
We finally got into the museum and saw the army. My first impression wasn't the one I expected, I thought there was no way they were genuine! I'd just seen them get smashed up on our docufilm and now I was seeing some absolutely perfect terracotta soldiers lined up in ranks and looking surprisingly like the ones I'd seen earlier in the factory. Once we ditched the guide and made our way around the chamber though I became a lot more impressed. As you got further back the soldiers were in their original state, in pieces lying on the floor, some only half excavated. They looked like an army that had
a tablet
turtle holding a tablet. been destroyed trying to protect their emperor.
When we made our way to the front again, where the soldiers were fully reconstructed, I was a bit more in the mood and able to appreciate what I was seeing. They are larger than life, each one with a different expression and with his hand in a different position (no weapons now though as they were all stolen). They line up in ranks, with infantry, archers, cavalry and officers. Our guide informed us that the fact the warriors are 7 foot tall and more, this was conclusive proof that the chinese in this region used to be giants. Proof that gullibility is alive and well in china today more like!
There are a further two museums on the site after the initial excavation pit, but neither are as good as the first one. We got marched round the other two by our guide, but if you ever get the chance to go make your own way there and spend a few hours in museum one, and just half an hour in the other two.
I suppose that the warriors were unsuccesful in their initial task of protecting him (but I think he was a bit optimistic hoping otherwise) but their discovery has secured emperor Qin's legacy in and outside of China 2000 years later, which I'm sure he would have settled for.
Back in Xi'an we spent the night in the muslim quarter. Xi'an is the final destination of the silk road, so there are still muslim influences there today. The muslim quarter is a great place to while away an evening. There are market selling the usual tat, but the best thing is the food stalls. The muslims, distiguishable by their white hats, all have stalls fronting onto the street. We got a great hearty meal of mutton and some kind of wheaty hash, with a bit of naan, then some pommegranate fritters, loads of dried fruit, a kind of spicy fried naan with filling. And down the road somebody was playing one of those recorder type things that snake charmers have. Very atmospheric. I could have been somwhere more exotic except for the almost sub zero temperatures!
We also had a great hotpot in the muslim quarter, which is basically a big pot of stock full of chillis and spices, and you dip skewers of meat and veg into it to cook them, then dip them into a jar of chilli and sesame oil. It was pretty good but the bloke was playing con the westerner so we got stung on that one. Lesson learnt, always ask the price BEFORE you eat!
Xi'an was on OK city. Very overcrowded and polluted but that's the norm with China. We took a walk round the city walls, which are pretty impressive and seem to define the street name wherever you are in the city. The locals all go for a walk round them in the evening too. Old men take their pet birds out and hang the cages in the trees so the birds can 'taste nature' for an hour or so. There are loads of people practising Tai Chi and other martial arts, playing badminton (people play badminton everywhere!) and even walking backwards. One guy told us that this is to turn back time, another told us it's just for exercise. I prefered the first explanation.
We also went to the forest of steles museum, which is a museum of old confucian tablets. Big slabs of rock about ten foot tall, a foot thick with confucian works written on them. Wouldn't like to have been a librarian in those days. The accident group would have had a field day with the bad back claims. There were even some with artwork on them. They were all very beautiful but obviously we didn't understand a word. The museum is in a very beautiful part of the city though, near the art university, with loads of traditional chinese buildings with red lanterns in the street, and some great noodle places where you can watch them make the noodles in front of you from a big lump of dough, and fill up on them 5 minutes later for about 30p.
Then we jumped on the train to head to Chengdu, when we made two important discoveries. Beers in the buffet car are only about 40p for a big bottle and there are western style toilets next to the buffet car. Both important factors on a 12 hour train journey!
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